Steven Wilson, 18, of Pine Ridge, sings "The Star-Spangled Banner" in the Lakota language for the State A Boys Basketball tournament Friday, March 16, in Rapid City. (Photo: Screenshot)

Steven Wilson is always a little nervous to sing the national anthem before a sporting event.

Until the microphone is in his hand.

This weekend, Wilson performed the anthem on a larger stage than normal: the Class A state boys basketball tournament in Rapid City.

And the video of him singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in the Lakota language is resonating with thousands.

The video, posted by Kevin Phillips, who announced the Friday game between Red Cloud High School and Crow Creek, has been viewed more than 400,000 times and shared more than 11,000.

"I've been singing the national anthem (in Lakota) for about three years now," Wilson said. "Whenever it hits a bigger platform that wasn't just a Native American audience, it shocked a lot of people. I feel like whenever I sing that song in Lakota, it has a bigger meaning behind it."

Wilson, 18, graduated from Red Cloud last year. He started singing the national anthem in English at sporting events his sophomore year, and in Lakota his junior year.

The first time he sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" in Lakota was the last home football game of his junior year. He continued to sing it at volleyball, basketball and football games throughout high school.

The song's translation is as about as close to literal as you can get, Wilson said. The Lakota language is very descriptive. He worked with his Lakota teacher to better understand the exact meaning when he sang.

"It's one of the hardest songs I've ever had to learn, just because I wanted to understand what the song was saying," Wilson said. "To enunciate the words and go with the melody of the English version."

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It is estimated that there are about 6,000 fluent speakers of the Lakota language, according to the University of California-Los Angeles Language Materials Project. The same study found that the language is in danger of becoming extinct.

Less than 25 percent of people on the Pine Ridge Reservation can speak the Lakota language, a drop from about half of the population in the 1990s, according to Red Cloud school's website. On other Lakota reservations, the number is as low as 4 percent.

Wilson didn't grow up speaking Lakota, but, like many other students at Red Cloud, he took classes in the language for about three years.

"People who graduate from there (Red Cloud) know a considerate amount (of Lakota)," he said.

Whenever Wilson gets done singing, he usually gets a few "Good job" comments from the crowd, but he received a more powerful response Friday.

A woman he didn't know thanked him for using his voice to represent the voiceless.

"She said, 'I think it's really beautiful to use your voice to represent a nation who has been voiceless for decades,'" Wilson said.

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When Wilson first started singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in Lakota, he thought of it as singing for his home and people, but as he progressed to a larger stage, the weight of the melody increased.

"That song being sung in the Lakota language, it represents a lot more than I could even imagine to a lot of different people," he said. "One of those is giving a voice to a nation, not just the Lakota, but all the Native Americans within the United States. That voice and that representation."

There were three Native American teams in the Class A state tournament this year. In past years, the Lakota Flag Song has also been performed before games.

Wilson is now studying medical biology at the University of South Dakota. He hopes someone continues the tradition of singing the national anthem in Lakota.

"So many people had a positive response to (the song)," Wilson said. "For that, I'm really thankful. That was the whole idea behind the song is to represent the people, and it did just that. It's about the people and about going out there and representing them, and for that I'm really thankful."